Viswanathan K's Thoughts

The alignment problem. A phrase Yuval Noah Harari uses in Nexus to describe the mismatch and thus the problems created by today’s information systems. The Internet started off by being free (content), but companies had to find a way to make money. They found ads. But that created a second-order consequence – it became necessary to show more ads, which meant it became key that users spent the maximum possible time online. User “engagement” has thus become the mantra of the Internet, quality (let alone truth) of content be damned. And outrage outsells tranquillity by a mile.   Clausewitz, a Prussian general, wrote a book called On War , in which he famously said that: “War is the continuation of policy by other means.” In his view, wars should not be based on emotions or egos or even righteousness. Rather, war should be used as a political tool and even then, only if it aligns with some overarching political goal. (Indira Gandhi in Bangladesh is pure Clausewitz; George W B...

Kashmir had a Hindu ruler and a Muslim majority. It was for this reason Jinnah just assumed it would come to Pakistan, and did little to nothing to ensure the outcome. Nehru, on the other hand, had a personal connection to the state, writes Sam Dalrymple in Shattered Lands .   The Partition led to massacres in Punjab, some of which began to spill over into Kashmir. When Muslims in Poonch appealed to Pakistan to do something, an informal go ahead was given but not via the Pakistani Army (that would have amounted to war). Instead, the Muslim League National Guards (somewhat similar to RSS) were assigned the task. They added a tribal army ( lashkar ) to their troops. What about payment? They were authorized to loot places as payment. A fateful decision, as it would turn out.   The troops would spend an inordinate amount of time looting Muzaffarabad, in turn delaying their taking all of Kashmir, most importantly Srinagar airport. The Maharaja of Kashmir asked India to in...

Throughout history, propaganda and hate have existed. Is social media just a new vehicles for what’s always been there? Or is it different/worse, asks Yuval Noah Harari in Nexus .   Yes, he says, social media is different. Because what is seen/shown is determined by non-humans, i.e., algorithms. AI has only added fuel to that fire, but the problem was visible even before AI. Algorithms, for example, auto-play the next video in your feed. They decide what to show you based on what you’ve already liked and seen. They show more of content that provokes outrage and anger. Why? Not out of malice, but because they want to maximize the time you spend online (More time online = more ads = more money). “In a completely free information fight, truth tends to lose.” This is why Harari believes that more information doesn’t always lead to good outcomes. It was true up to a point – countries with free press were better than dictator-controlled news systems. But no more.   Over ...

Let us go in detail into a couple of princely states and their tales of “dethronement” (it’s the title of another book dedicated to the topic, I decided to use that term). Or as Sam Dalrymple puts it in Shattered Lands : “There is arguably no other revolution in world history that ended so many monarchies in so short a span of time.” ~~   Junagadh first. It had “neither the romance of Kashmir, nor the opulent wealth of Hyderabad”, yet being close to Gujarat, it carried an emotional connect to Gandhi, Patel and Jinnah (all Gujaratis, remember?). Its ruler was a Muslim; the majority of his subjects were Hindu. The Nawab, based on assurances from Jinnah, decided to join Pakistan.   But India was keen to prevent this for multiple reasons, including the presence of Somnath and Dwarka in it. Upon learning of the decision to join Pakistan, Home Minister Patel sent forces to surround Junagadh. Coal and petroleum couldn’t enter, the phone lines were all tapped. As its econ...

In Nexus , Yuval Noah Harari goes deeper into information networks involving humans. Early religions had a problem – how did one know whether the narrator/priest was indeed conveying the original instructions? What if he was changing things, accidentally or deliberately?   The invention of the book offered a solution. “After tens of thousands of years in which gods spoke to humans via shamans, priests, prophets, oracles and other human messengers, religious movements… began arguing that the gods spoke through this novel technology of the book.” In theory at least, all copies of the book could be identical.   Religions of the book (Semitic ones) though then ran into a new problem. “Who decides what to include in the holy book?” After all, the first copy didn’t come from heaven. But the faithful decided that a “once-and-for-all supreme effort” with the wisest and most trustworthy men could stitch the first book together. (It still led to debates on who would for...

Partition eventually produced India and Pakistan (East and West). But for a while, a 3 rd group existed in parallel – the princely states, writes Sam Dalrymple in Shattered Lands . The British even considered handing power separately to the provincial governments (they were honest in its name – Plan Balkan). How large a part of India were these princely states? This map is worth a thousand words (BROWN = India; GREEN = Pakistan; WHITE = “independent” princely states)   Nehru was apoplectic at the idea. So Mountbatten turned to the most competent civil servant in his staff, VP Menon, and gave him a single night to come up with an alternative proposal. Menon came up with the idea that each of the 565 princely states would have to pick a side; they couldn’t say “None of the above” (not just for independence. The kingdom of Dir, for example, considered joining Afghanistan !).   A senior political advisor to Mountbatten, Conrad Corfield didn’t agree – he wanted the princely states...